Psalm 45.6

Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity. 

There are some images that stay with us long after we see them for the first time. For instance, someone only needs to mention the man and the tank and we might immediately conjure in our minds the defiant Chinese man who stood solitarily in front of a column of tanks immediately after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Or someone might mention something about a solider in love and we’ll see the black and white photo of the sailor kissing a woman in the middle of Time’s Square after the end of World War II. Or still yet we might overhear a conversation about the Great Depression and we’ll remember the young woman staring off into the distance with her children crying into her shoulder.

There are just some images that remain fixed in our minds.

For me, one of those memorable images is a cartoon depicting the differences between equality and equity. In the first panel there are three figures attempting to watch a baseball game over a fence. One is tall, one is of average height, and the last is small. The panel is labeled “EQUALITY” and all of the figures have been given the same size box on which they can stand to watch the game. However, because their heights are so varied, only the tallest and average size figures can see anything.

The second panel contains the same three figures, only in this one we see the label “EQUITY” and each figure has been given a box appropriately sized so that all the figures can watch the game.

I can’t remember when I came across the image for the first time, but it has been stuck in my head ever since. It highlights the often ignored side of equality that still leaves some people forgotten, while also addressing the difficult truth of equity that some require more than others for true equality to be present.

One of the most prevailing motifs in scripture is that God is a God of leveling. God will bring the mountain down and raise the valley up; God will make the last first and the first last. And part of God’s desire for equity is one in which the kingdom God rules provides ways and means for all to participate in this new reality. 

That can be hard to swallow for those of us who already have so much, but it truly is Good News for those who cannot “watch the game.” It means that some of us will be called to forfeit our privileges so that others can stand shoulder to shoulder with us. It means that God is working in and through people like you and me to make leveling realities. And it means that one day all of us will stand before the Lord with the same equity.